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The Chinese New Year celebrates the beginning of the New Year according to the lunar calendar. Traditionally, the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, was a time to honor household and heavenly deities and ancestors and to gather with family for elaborate feasts. Although the Chinese typically celebrate New Year’s Day on January 1 ever since China’s adoption of the Western calendar in 1912, the Chinese New Year is still widely celebrated and remains an important social and economic holiday in China.(more…)

What is Black History Month?

On Black History Month, or National African American History Month, we celebrate the achievements of black Americans while remembering the important people and events that helped reshape American history and culture.(more…)

“Everybody’s Polish on Dyngus Day!” Every year, Dyngus Day (or Dingus Day) is celebrated the Monday following Easter Sunday. In 2013, Dyngus Day is celebrated on Monday, April 1.

Dyngus Day is observed in Poland as well as many communities in America that have a heavy concentration of people with Polish ancestry. Historically, it is a day where boys douse girls in water and lightly swat them with pussy willow branches.

These traditions have blossomed into a full-out party day complete with drinking, festivals and parades. The largest Dyngus Day celebration in America is held in Buffalo,New York, which began holding festivities in honor of Dyngus Day in the 1960s.